Assessment and Recommendations

According to the census-based definition, the rural population of the People's Republic of China (hereafter: China) was 737 million in 2006, accounting for 56% of the national total. China is thus still a predominantly rural country with the second largest rural population in the world, after India. The rural population is unevenly distributed across China’s territory: half of it is concentrated in eight provinces. In contrast, the three largest provinces in terms of area, namely Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, represent more than 40% of the national territory, but their rural population accounts for less than 4% of the total. Rural population density is highest in coastal Shandong, Tianjin, Jiangsu and in centrally located Anhui and Henan where it exceeds or is close to 300 persons per km2 and lowest in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang, all located in the west, where it is below ten persons per km2. Low density in the largest provinces results in a relatively low average density of rural population in China at around 75 persons per km2.